Red Beans And Advice for Monday, July 17

What to do with all your fruit

My mother and Maxine were big fans of Everybody Loves Raymond. It was their comfort TV. Whenever there was nothing to watch, or the Detroit Tigers were losing, a regular occurrence, they would put on a Raymond. For a time, Nick at Night ran episodes back to back from 8 pm to 11 pm, so it was a readily available alternative.

I was not initially a fan, but it grew on me. I was tickled by the episode in which Ray and his brother gave their mother Marie a subscription to the Fruit of the Month Club.

She was horrified: “What am I supposed to do with all those pears?”

Now that fruit is flooding into farmers markets around the U.S. and Canada, you might be wondering the same thing.